COMMENTS

31 thoughts on “POLL : Do you agree with Ian Ayre’s idea that L.F.C. should negotiate TV rights separately”

Bad, BAD idea. Part of the charm of the Premier League is its unpredictability. This will mean more income for the ‘big 4’ definitely, but do we really want to see a 2 horse race throughout the season with even lesser chances of upsets than right now?

in the modern Era you have hardly few options to run club without debt.. individual deal to generate subsequent revenue and it is must if at least Premier league wants to see players like messi come here and play

can big clubs risk of having avg players when Likes of RM & Barca can pay 220-240k pounds/week to top players?unless you have oil money??? how long can you run club with financial injections ??? small clubs have small expenditure… big Clubs hav to manage big wages,transfer fees, staff and training staff ets etc

Wat Chelsea and Mancity did was to bring in money from outside. they dint directly affect the other clubs. true, their spending power increased, but the revenue they got from broadcasting rights n stuff was the same.
What i propose they should do is, to distribute the domestic rights equally and to divide the international rights on the basis of team performance, number of matches displayed, position in the league, etc. I think its the other way round right now.

Who didn’t bark? Opposing fans? I’m pretty sure we all voiced displeasure at the change in the footballing landscape.

The difference with relation to the EPL clubs position is that they have the ability to directly oppose the TV deal, which is something they couldn’t do against billionaire investors. I sincerely doubt that the rest of the clubs were quietly applauding.

The likes of Liverpool and United already receive a very large slice of the overall revenue. Pissing all over the EPL in order to gain a bit more would be a disgusting act.

Madrid and Barcelona should not be lauded as role models. Both those clubs operate at ridiculous levels of debt backed up by the Spanish government, competing in a league that is tailor made to ensure their continued dominance.

When small clubs charge category A prices for the visit of the bigger sides, they are happy to cash in on the big club visit, but when the biggest club decides it deserve’s the money it drives, then the little clubs get the hump. No surprise Chelsea resisting as nobody interested in the rights to Chelsea games

If it benefits Liverpool, yes I agree. LFC 1st and foremost. Chelsea and man city wont want to agree with Mr.Ayre, They will be exposed of not having the fan base they want people to believe.The MANCS just want to look pretty for now. Its a known fact LFC and the MANCS are the only true English clubs with a foreign following, the rest well wannabees.

I’d be interested to see how it compares financially for someone like Bolton who Ian used as an example; if they sign star players from China, India etc. which is well within their grasp, surely that would drive up their saleability in those countries? How hard would a club at that level have to work to achieve the income they receive now under the current regime? Of course this is from a business point of view; I guess it would stifle development of homegrown players.

I’m not surprised mu and chelsea are against it; it would, with FSG on board, catapult Liverpool right into the highest bracket of earners internationally.

Ayre’s argument is equal sharing of domesitic tv rights n individual rights to intl broadcast, n tht purely depends on the individual club appeal. I read somewhere abt this nt being the Shankly way. Y isn’t it? It’s like the stadium expansion or a new stadium. If therz a demand, a demand for LFC, then all Ayre is saying that we service it….without infringing on the deserved revenue stream of other clubs!

i have to admit after reading all the articles i dont like the idea. what ian is trying to do is commendable,growing the club financially and thus a even bigger player.
however as well as being a die-hard liverpool fan, i am also a football fan and something like this will widen the pkaying field not level it. the prem’ league is the most competitive in the world,the games are usually tight and could you honestly predict the team standings from (for arguments sake) 3rd down? unlikely. something like this will unbalance that and make the league less competative.

I commend the idea, to bring the club to a larger scale, however i think we can win even without it… Real Madrid and Barcelona can only afford to buy big is because their government is behind them financing them… it makes their league really boring… a team can only fit 11 stars each… with them we can only see 22 stars playing against crap team most of the season… The premier league is the best in the world because we have so many good teams, yeah we have the big four or the big six now… but we always get upsets here and there… try watching a footy show on la liga… its fill with barcelona, messi, real madrid and ronaldo… then it gets boring… I for one… would not want this… i would rather we generate money by mechandising, local fan clubs and club membership… increase the sense of belonging within the fans… We by far do have the biggest fan base in the world… Im from Malaysia and I was one of those at the stands where 80000++ turnded up for the match singing our way into and out of the stadium….

Do not forget how we got to be such a successful club, not by selling our soul… A saying by our great father Shankly “The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.”

The day Liverpool starts playing with themselves, they can own the TV rights … but if they play another team, they aren’t the product. The fuxture, or the encounter, is the product. It’s not LFC’s product.

Should the match referee own TV rights to the games they officiate? They are as much a participant as LFC is.

Ppl need to realise we are’t in 60 or 70’s where only revenue generated by club used to spend for players. . How your going to compet with money bags like manchester city, anzhi, psg in terms of wages and spending ? They come up with some stupid stadium naming rights to get their books right. . For the clubs like liverpool, arsenal, united only way to generate money is through fans . . Tv deal is part of it. . . If you have sentiments for others when your going to reach revenue level of Real madrid (£470m) and barcelona (£349m). How long can you keep hold of players of suarez calibre with mere 100k a week when real pay 240k/week for ronaldo and barca pay 260k/w for messi. . Do all world class players care only about clubs not money ? Bcz of the reason to show sympathy to small clubs you can’t compromise the gaint of the games status of the club. . Liverpool is one of the biggest club in the footballing history and to maintain that we must generate the same amount of money real and barca generate. . . It is necessery for our club irrespective of its effect on smaller fan base clubs.

I think its only fair, why should other clubs benefit from our branding? If we want to kick on and be genuine contendors in the league and in europe we’ll need every extra revenue stream, large stadiums, naming rights and jersey sales wont be enough.

Television money would also help fund a larger stadium better training facilities.

The problem is the PREMIER LEAGUE won’t let this happen 14 clubs have to agree.
What we going to do break away and set up our own league?
No support from the other teams Ayre mentioned,you would of thought Man United would be
interested as their fan base is most probably bigger then ours now and it could work against us in the long term.

Agree mate, why should we give ManU a chance to catch their breath? See, when the season they sold ronaldo to madrid, the money almost went all to pay their debt interest. See, after they had more revenues by having the biggest capacity stadium in the league, they reign the league in the last two decade by having more money to spend on the player like Rio Ferdinand, Rooney, etc.

How many players can Barcelona/Madrid actually keep? Stop making it seem like EVERY player in the world will be at either of those clubs if we don’t change the tv rights deal. That’s a completely ridiculous argument.

The simple fact is that the current distribution helps to make the Premier League a more competitive environment. There are two teams in Spain who can win the title. Next season we could see a potential pool of 3-5. I know which one I’d rather watch.

Right now the 3rd best team in La Liga cannot get a shirt sponsor. They play Champion’s League football too. That’s what Spain’s tv rights deal is doing for their league.

For me this is a must, in an uncapped sport it is criminal that teams have to split their international television rights amongst all the clubs. I believe domestically the rights should be shared but in international markets that are highly localized in their fan support we are being crippled by not having the rights to distribute the Liverpool Brand across the world freely. We will NEVER keep up with the spending of Man City and Chelsea and this is a massive revenue stream that is being blocked from us. For the people arguing that this involves selling our soul or some nonsense I do not understand your logic because we aren’t selling our soul, we are looking to capitalize on our massive following in Asia which right now we can not provide them with the Liverpool coverage they would be willing to buy.

I think that local/UK broadcasting rights should be shared equally but the international rights should be sold individually by the clubs. It is the fairest system I can think of since nearly nobody outside of the UK watches Wigan and other small clubs even medium sized clubs like Everton and Aston Villa do not have a decent fan base outside the UK

Totally agree with Ian Ayre – the problem with Liverpool FC in financial terms, certainly in the past, was that we were too ‘nice’. By that I mean we weren’t ruthless enough or capitalised enough financially on the phenominal success we achieved. All as he’s trying to do is re-address that problem and bring us in line with the other 4 big leagues in Europe, whose top sides adopt the same policy as he’s proposing. Simple. It doesn’t dilute the values of the club – that’s just nonsense !

i feel the top teams should be compensated with a percentage higher than others according to the audience attraction survey, but it should remain collective bargaining as that makes the negotiation stronger than if it is done in units

There is nothing wrong with wanting to generate more revenue based on how absolutely HUGE the club’s following is, but as an American, I don’t like it. Right now, I pay $5 to get a package of channels that includes Fox Soccer Net and Fox Soccer Plus. In addition to the big matches on ESPN2, I see a ton of their games for relative chump change. If LFC did get the chance to market themselves independently, who knows what channel they’d wind up on and if I’d be able to subscribe to it.

in my opinion, as this regards the international broadcasting rights, it should be up to the individual clubs to promote themselves. who, in anyone right mind, would overpay for something just because it comes in a package? keep in mind, ayre was questioning about the international broadcasting rights, not the local rights which were awarded annually…

it is well known nowadays, the huge amount of supporters we have across the globe. therefore, is it a fair deal for them (including me) to pay exorbitantly for the whole epl package when all they want is to watch liverpool? why would i want to pay for the other clubs, especially the mancs and the londoners? won’t it be better for me to be able to choose to pay for ‘liverpool only’ broadcast and thus, generating the income that the club needs? think about it…

Do we want a break away league?
That is where it will head and how many teams will be prepared to break away?
The top lets say 8 teams not much of a league?
The one thing about the premier league at the moment it is a stable lets say product in sport when nearly all the other major leagues in sport are having money problems for example Spainish,Italian,NBA and NFL.
We should be pushing for more TV money from the premier league.